How is there only one week left?! This was quite the eventful week, featuring everything from World Chimpanzee Day to food poisoning to safari!
Week of July 14th-July 20th
Monday, July 14th: Happy World Chimpanzee Day! We started off the morning with our CE team meeting, followed by the staff meeting, where Eavan and Elio previewed a rough cut of the video we had put together for WCD. It was great!
After lunch, the CE team headed to Rutoma B. and Mituuli for WCD celebrations and activities. While all 16 of the KFSP schools celebrated World Chimpanzee Week, these two schools scored the highest during our World Chimpanzee Week preparatory visits, so they received a visit from us and some special guest speakers to celebrate the day. I was at Mituuli with Elio and Luke, where the activities lasted from 2:30 pm to 5 pm and included a skit and traditional dance from the Wildlife Club members, followed by talks from a snare remover, primate researcher, and park ranger from Kibale National Park. Luke also spoke on behalf of the CE team, sharing why we celebrate World Chimpanzee Day and how it commemorates the legacy of Jane Goodall and her first visit to Tanzania to study the chimps on July 14th, 1960. The entire event went wonderfully, and we got some fabulous photos.
When we got back from the day's visit, we were surprised by a second night of cake for dessert. What a treat!
Tuesday, July 15th: On Tuesday, we were allowed to take it a little easy, especially after our busy weekend and the end of all our World Chimpanzee Week/Day work. I spent the morning uploading videos from our school visits the day before, while Eavan and Elio finished editing the video (which is linked at the end of this post).
In the afternoon, some scholars went to the burial of one of the staff's family members. I did not feel comfortable going, so instead I stayed back at Kasiisi with Dave and Cecille, helping Cecille with her girls' sports initiatives. We played a game of P5 netball, and then I was actually able to play a game with the P6 girls once they got out of class. From what I understand, netball is like a mix of basketball and ultimate frisbee, and while I still do not fully know the rules, I had a great time playing along.
We ended the night watching the first half of The French Dispatch, which was really good!
Wednesday, July 16th: I woke up at 3 am to chattering outside by the bathrooms, only to discover that some of the scholars had come down with food poisoning! At 6:30 am, they were still out there, and I joined them, feeling a little nauseous myself. Chef Izaac made us all a concoction of hot water, garlic, turmeric, ginger, and rosemary, which I assumed was to help soothe our stomachs. Well, it turns out the drink (which tasted disgusting) was intended to make you throw up, and boy, did it work! I spent the day sick in bed, being dutifully taken care of by the wonderful guesthouse staff, while the health team staff members came periodically to check in on everyone who was feeling unwell. We think the food poisoning came from the fresh avocado salad we'd had with dinner the night before, one of the few downsides to food here being so fresh.
After a dinner of toast and plain spaghetti (my first meal of the day), I went to bed early while those who were feeling well (or well enough) finished The French Dispatch.
Thursday, July 17th: On Thursday, I woke up with a slight headache and feeling a bit weak, but much better compared to the day prior! After a light breakfast, the CE team headed to the office, where I spent the morning finalizing the birds, bats, and butterflies curricula we had made, making a presentation on graphic design to share with the staff next week, and digitizing the two best WCW posters that we had collected from each of the schools. These will be printed professionally and returned to the schools to serve as educational material and showcase the artistic talents of the students.
After lunch, we were supposed to have an ICS demonstration at some of the schools, but due to the parliamentary elections, these were cancelled so teachers could leave early to vote. We spent the afternoon finishing up our work from the morning, which worked out well for those of us who were still getting better.
Before bed, I finished my 8th book of the trip, the last of the ones I brought from home! Yay!
Friday, July 18th: I woke up feeling much more like myself this morning! Our guest talk for the day was moved to next week, so the CE team and I spent the morning working on our final report for the Laidlaw Network and creating a WCD/WCW report for the Kasiisi conservation team. I also reviewed my graphic design presentation with Alexa, the other scholar I will be presenting with next week.
For lunch, we invited all of the KFSP staff over to the guesthouse for a surprise birthday celebration for Derrick. Derrick was totally shocked and very touched, and we all had a lovely time. We also made plans for a big group dinner in Fort Portal next Friday, our last night at Kasiisi.
Our celebrations were followed by a hive demonstration where we were taught how to construct the bee hives that they use at the Kasiisi Farm apiary. We then worked together to make our own hive, which I hammered a little too aggressively, bruising my thumb in the process, oops! After the demo, we headed back to the office to finish digitizing the WCD posters from the day before and headed to bed shortly after dinner in preparation for Saturday's safari.
Saturday, July 19th: Saturday, we woke up at 4:30 am for our safari to Queen Elizabeth National Park, being told we were leaving at 5 am in an effort to get to the park by 7:30/8 am, for the best chance to see the lions (who are most active in the mornings). Well, due to some power issues in the kitchen, our packed lunches were not ready until 6:30 am, so we did unfortunately miss seeing the lions.
Nonetheless, the trip was amazing! Gorret, Isaac, and Shami joined us for the experience, which included driving over the equator before entering the park(and we got photo proof this time), and a "game tour" once we were inside. For the game tour, we were accompanied by Natasha, a park ranger who jumped in our van, telling us about all the different animals we were seeing as we drove around the park. On our drive, we saw hippos, water buffalo, antelope, African Savannah Elephants, warthogs, and a variety of birds. We also waited for about 20 minutes to try and see a leopard, but abandoned our efforts to try and make it in time for our boat cruise. We ended up missing said cruise due to a road closure in the park, so we spent 2 hours waiting for the next one of Queen Elizabeth's many tourist resorts. The resort had an infinity pool, and you could rent swimsuits for a few shillings, so a few of us decided to pass the time with a swim. The view was gorgeous!
We finally made it to the boat cruise, which was the best part of the entire trip! This tour took us along a channel that connects two of the country's largest lakes, Lake Edward and Lake George, and on it, we got to see all the animals from the game tour (plus Nile Crocodiles) interacting with the water and each other, the hippos even swam under the boat, rocking us back and forth!. It was so nice to view everything from the comfort of the cruise as opposed to the bumpy van and to have our guide provide us with information about all the different animals we were seeing. Fun Fact: A group of hippos is called a school.
We finished our time at Queen Elizabeth with a tour of the salt mines and a quick trip to a flamingo lake. The salt mines were salt pans, or fenced-off beds of water, in a salt lake. The local community, one of many villages located within the boundaries of Queen Elizabeth National Park, harvests this salt for eating, animal feed, and to export as rock salt. The community makes its income solely from salt mining and fishing, seeing as they are not permitted to farm (it attracts too many wild animals). It was really interesting to learn all about the salt mining process and see the boats that they use to extract the salt from the lakes. The flamingos, who inhabited a different, nearby lake, were also beautiful, and it was cool to hear about how they fly to different lakes in Africa for different stages of their mating rituals.
After a long and bumpy ride back to the guesthouse, we had a very late dinner and then collapsed in bed, exhausted from our wonderful adventure!
Sunday, July 20th: A much-needed reset day! We all slept in and had a late breakfast, spending the morning lazing around the guesthouse. I got some reading in and then did some yoga to stretch out my legs after such a long car ride the day before. Some of the kids who were not attending church, but rather out-and-about, playing on the grass, came over and started following along with some of my yoga moves, which was really cute!
After lunch, we headed into Fort Portal to do some souvenir shopping, and I bought dried Jack Fruit to try as a snack (which is not as good as the real thing in my opinion). We then went back to the resort where we'd had dinner a few weeks back, this time spending the afternoon by the pool, which was so relaxing. We got to read, swim, and eat ice cream, and some of the scholars even got massages. It was the most pleasant way to end a very eventful week and recharge before our final week here. Wow.
World Chimpanzee Day video we put together: https://youtu.be/WjVMQ7zL1Nk?feature=shared